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MidnightWolf
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Few handy feature requests for UE Viewer
« on: July 29, 2014, 13:44 »
Hello!

I recently stumbled into your program and I find it amazingly useful. I use it for Red Orchestra Ostfront 41-45 (UE3). There are some features however which could make this even better.

-Mesh scaling (independently on X/Y/Z axis)
-Saving/loading camera coordinates (eg. you move the camera to a specific position, then you exit the viewer but later want to restore the same view position)
-Attaching Skeletal and Static Meshes to bones (Red Orchestra's MG42 machinegun for example builds up the ammo belt consisting a lot of bone-attached single ammo rounds)
-Setting background color (right now it is gradient gray, would be nice to be able to set any solid RGB color  (whole scene with same background color) )
-Setting scene resolution (eg. 800x600 window)
« Last Edit: July 29, 2014, 13:54 by MidnightWolf » Logged
rroobboo
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Re: Few handy feature requests for UE Viewer
« Reply #1 on: July 29, 2014, 14:00 »
Oh, that's would be awesome to do, but the most problem we all have is texture names. Sometimes I'm spending hours to find proper texture, because either umodel exports different name of textures, or ActorX cannot recognize real filename and gives you absolutely wrong name, so you have to guess which one is the right one.
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Gildor
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Re: Few handy feature requests for UE Viewer
« Reply #2 on: July 29, 2014, 14:24 »
Hello

Quote from: MidnightWolf on July 29, 2014, 13:44
-Mesh scaling (independently on X/Y/Z axis)
I believe you may scale mesh as you want in Max?
Quote
-Saving/loading camera coordinates (eg. you move the camera to a specific position, then you exit the viewer but later want to restore the same view position)
Camera position is computed for each object independently, according to its bounding box
Quote
-Attaching Skeletal and Static Meshes to bones (Red Orchestra's MG42 machinegun for example builds up the ammo belt consisting a lot of bone-attached single ammo rounds)
-Setting background color (right now it is gradient gray, would be nice to be able to set any solid RGB color  (whole scene with same background color) )
Such features would require UI in umodel, which does not exist
Quote
-Setting scene resolution (eg. 800x600 window)
You may resize the window, or even set it to fullscreen mode with Alt+Enter.
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MidnightWolf
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Re: Few handy feature requests for UE Viewer
« Reply #3 on: July 29, 2014, 14:54 »


Quote
I believe you may scale mesh as you want in Max?
Yes, but if I only need scaling for getting a different view (eg. I don't need the scaled model for other than that), then it creates a lot of sidework (exporting,scaling in editor, importing back). This may not seem a lot at first, but if I have to do that with a lot of models, that can be time consuming.
Quote
Camera position is computed for each object independently, according to its bounding box
Maybe a simple text file parser can be introduced, to save the relative coordinates for the object in question.

Quote
Such features would require UI in umodel, which does not exist
Again, a simple text file parsing for attaching objects to bones, and an .ini file to store editor settings like background color.

Quote
You may resize the window, or even set it to fullscreen mode with Alt+Enter.

I realize that but it is hard to resize to an exact value. It would be much easier to set it in an ini file for example.
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MidnightWolf
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Re: Few handy feature requests for UE Viewer
« Reply #4 on: July 30, 2014, 11:45 »
A bit more in detail about these features. This is just a sketch how I imagine the mentioned features working.

umodel.ini - basic viewer settings

Stores settings for the viewer. By default, umodel looks for umodel.ini, but that could be overridden with -ini command line parameter. This allows for loading different settings based on what the user needs.

Code:
background = RGB(0,255,255);     // cyan, would be the same as HEX(00,FF,FF);
xres = 800;    // set horizontal resolution of scene
yres = 600;    // set vertical resolution of scene
gamepath = "D:\Program Files\Unreal\Meshes\";     // set directory for game files - same as -path cmdline parameter
exportpath = "D:\Program Files\umodel\export\";    // set directory for exported files - same as -out cmdline parameter


meshes.ini - Attaching Skeletal/StaticMeshes to bones, scaling, camera position etc...

Customizes the display of the loaded mesh.

Code:
[Soldier_Mesh]    // mesh name starts definition
xscale = 1.0000;
yscale = 1.0000;
zscale = 1.0000;
pitch = 0;
yaw = 0;
roll = 0;
camxpos = 0;    // camera position relative to the model's bounding box
camypos = 0;
camzpos = 0;
campitch = 0;
camyaw = 0;
camroll = 0;

bones 
{
lefthand = SkeletalMesh'Weapons3rd_anm.kar98';    // bonename = type'package.mesh';
head = SkeletalMesh'gear_anm.ger_helmet';
pocket = StaticMesh'ammo_sm.bullet';
};
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Gildor
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Re: Few handy feature requests for UE Viewer
« Reply #5 on: July 30, 2014, 11:54 »
Quote from: MidnightWolf on July 30, 2014, 11:45
meshes.ini - Attaching Skeletal/StaticMeshes to bones, scaling, camera position etc...
I think it's much easier to import models into 3ds Max or UDK and do the same there using UI, than editing such parameters in a text file.
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MidnightWolf
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Re: Few handy feature requests for UE Viewer
« Reply #6 on: July 30, 2014, 12:07 »
Seems like that our opinion differs on that one  Smiley Having to edit the model in an editor makes umodel's user rely on an another program (instead of being able to customize display right in umodel), and in the end you still need to specify what you want to attach and to which bone anyway. Having a GUI to do that makes little difference (clicking vs typing).

Besides, meshes.ini stores other vital information like the ones which help to preserve camera view after exiting the program.


I'm not gonna push these features any more further, it is up to you to implement it anyway. But considering the amount of games umodel already support, features like these would be beneficent for everyone using umodel.
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